


Spare Time in the 501st

by Anonymous



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 05:05:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3557093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Long hyperspace journeys give the 501st the most free time. That's not always a good thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spare Time in the 501st

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sildae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sildae/gifts).



> Prompt: I love ‘daily life’ snippets. The 501st on the ship.
> 
> Written by [spaceyquill](http://tmblr.co/mGUsMeyoVgSg70jdZf0Miww) on tumblr

The calmest time for the 501st came during their long hyperspace journeys. Even on Coruscant waiting for their next mission they weren't as safe as when they sped through space, free from all threats. Generally, this was also when the average soldier had the most spare time.

After a trip to the mess, Hardcase and Jesse ended up dragging Fives back to their sleeping cabin to show off their newest posters collected over leave. On the back wall hung the picture of a Human woman in an impossible contortion, on a closet panel hung a dancing Twi'lek, and Jesse displayed his own poster of a scantily-clad Rodian. Owning the bottom bunk, this picture was pinned to the underside of the top bunk— as personal as it could get.

Fives rolled his eyes. “Vod, what is it with you and Rodians? Why can't you like Twi'leks like the rest of the galaxy?” Hardcase skimmed his fingers lovingly over the poster Fives pointed to of the blue-skinned dancer.

“I'm just not into them,” Jesse said, shrugging. “Their head-tails are kinda... ugly.”

Hardcase made a hushing sound, still stroking the picture. “Don't listen to him, Carli'ina. He doesn't mean it.”

The doors hissed open then for Captain Rex in full kit and Ahsoka, already glancing about their room with interest.

“All right, men!” Rex called with an enthusiasm that instantly made Hardcase and Jesse snap to attention. “Cabin inspections begin now!”

Fives casually folded his arms across his chest as their superiors entered; Rex veered to the closet panels, opening one to hunt for anything amiss while Ahsoka much more carefully checked the properness of their folded blankets. As soon as she drew close enough, Fives said, “Jesse doesn't like your lekku, sir.”

Ahsoka's head snapped around, all wide-eyed and slanted eye markings. “What?” It was almost a whine. Jesse slouched out of his proper position of attention to sputter at Fives, while Ahsoka's hands flew to her lekku.

“What's wrong with them?”

“Sir, I did not say that! Your lekku are fine— HE is lying!”

Fives shrugged, his double pauldron bobbing. “Said they're ugly.”

The saddest little screech drew all the solders' attention as Ahsoka just stood there, half coddling, half hiding her lekku. “They're still growing! Leave me alone!” she cried before spinning on her heel and running from the cabin.

Fives' snickering choked to a halt while Jesse collapsed onto his bunk, his face in his hands.

“What the kriff is going on?!” Rex shouted, his visor zipping to all three guilty suspects. Hardcase at least had the presence of mind to keep out of the disastrous scene; he stubbornly stood at attention, just looking from one man to the other.  
…  
“Yeah,” grumbled Kix, “so when's that mechanic getting here?” He craned his neck to see into an opening far too small in the side of one of the medical droids. The offline droid was half-slumped onto a medbed, yards of coiled circuitry and some rather essential parts spilling from its interior along the bed. Coric paused his daily disinfectant routine to approach and inspect the junior medic's work.

“When do the mechanics ever get here? I'm pretty sure the work orders from eight months ago are still floating around somewhere.”

Kix stood straight and rolled his neck in a slow stretch. “I'm about to invade the mechanic's bay myself because this is—”

The door slid open to admit Ahsoka, hands clinging to her lekku as she shuffled over to the medics.

“Sir!” Coric greeted pleasantly enough, only to be met with slanting white eye markings and a prominent pout.

Ahsoka looked from one soldier to the other before mumbling, "My lekku are fine, right? They're growing okay? They're not ugly?" A small whine eked from her when the medics exchanged glances.

Coric reached out and slid one lek out of her grasp, inspecting it top to bottom before squeezing it experimentally, his expression as serious as if he was diagnosing a bleeding brother. He finally handed it back.

"Completely fine," he said. "And certainly healthy. Where'd you get the idea they were ugly, sir?"

"Jesse," she replied with the tiniest pout. Her free hand slowly returned to coddling her inspected lek when she heard a groan emanate from Kix.

The junior medic dropped his tools and headed for the door, mumbling, "Just once maybe he could think before he speaks!" The door swished open for him.

"Wait, where's he going?" Ahsoka asked.

Coric shrugged. "Probably to put Jesse in his place again."

Ahsoka winced. As much as she was self conscious about her lekku, she didn't want anyone to get in trouble over this.

A rustling grabbed her attention as Coric dug into a container standing on one of the hovering bedside trays. He withdrew a handful of wrapped treats, colorful and appealing. "Uj flavored candy, sir?"

The widest grin broke across her face. "Have you had these the whole time? Holding out on me!" She immediately dropped her lekku to receive all the treats in her open hands.

"We only have so much, sir. And this is a long mission."

Ahsoka's shoulders bunched defensively to hide her from his pointed stare. "I wouldn't have eaten all of them..." She immediately started unwrapping one.

An announcement from the bridge echoed throughout the flagship then, carrying Admiral Yularen's unusually strained voice shouting, “Whose astromech is trying to reroute our hyperspace course into Tatooine's smaller sun?!”

Ahsoka exchanged the briefest glance with Coric before returning the candy and shooting out into the hallway, sprinting toward the bridge. She had this down to a science, rushing from any part of the ship usually to the bridge to confiscate the malfunctioning droid of the week and lead it to the mechanic's bay.

Artoo beat her there; by the time Ahsoka slid through the bridge doors, Artoo was bumping into the red, cone-domed R4 unit as it furiously tried to maintain its access to a port in the navigation system. There was much beeping and screeching, but with the help of a couple of bridge officers, the R4 unit was yanked away from the terminal and Artoo immediately took its place, plugging in to undo all its calculations and routes.

Yularen vented a huff and dropped his gaze onto Ahsoka. "Please tell the General to stop fiddling with the droids on board! We have mechanics for a reason! This is the third time something like this has happened, and I'm quite out of patience!"

Ahsoka just nodded dumbly. This was the third time on Yularen's ship this had happened... but there was also those two times traveling with the 212th, that one time trying to help the Wolfpack's astromech, and every single time Anakin wound up in the Senate's maintenance room. She accepted the R4 droid and guided it out into the corridor, saying, “All right, little guy. Let's get you all fixed up.”

The mechanic's bay was at the opposite end of the ship and down several levels. The whole way there, the red R4 rammed into walls, skidded along hallways, and tried to access every port they passed, whistling spastically the entire time. At least the soldiers she passed got a kick out of it, because no one offered to help her.

Finally, Ahsoka guided the pitiful droid into the repair bay to find her own master sitting on a spare rotary cannon shell, hunkered over a deactivated WED-15 Treadwell droid. Anakin's movements were stiff but calculated, switching out the droid's parts for pieces scattered about the durasteel floor. Not everything he fit back into the droid always matched what he took out.

"Is this where you've been hiding, Master?" Ahsoka asked, coming to a halt behind him, snooping over his shoulder.

Anakin took a moment to stretch, his back cracking the entire way down his spine. It made him sigh, but Ahsoka cringe. He gave her a friendly nod. "Where'd you find R4? I was wondering where he'd gone off to." He watched the astromech bump into walls, shelving units, and deactivated droids along its confused route further inside the bay.

"On the bridge," she said, eye markings slowly slanting. "Didn't you hear Admiral Yularen over the comm system? R4 there almost got us killed."

Anakin tossed a hand exasperatedly in the comm speaker's direction. "The mechanics still haven't fixed this one yet. In their own bay! I'll check R4 out next, see what's wrong."

"Master, you don't have to tinker with the droids at all... it's not you job," Ahsoka said.

"I know," Anakin said with a shrug. "But I like it... it's calming. Almost like meditating for me."

"Well, in that case, the medical droid still needs to be fixed."  
...  
Rex commed Ahsoka on her way out of the mechanic's bay to let her know the cabin inspections had been completed for the day. Although she apologized, the captain assured her it wasn't an inconvenience and suggested she get some rest soon.

With hours to go before hot meals were available in the mess, Ahsoka sat in her own cabin, trying to focus on a datapad but ended up veering off on a different mental tangent every two minutes. A knock from the door roused her from this repetition.

"Come in?"

Opposite of all her expectations, Fives sauntered in, kama swaying lazily, helmet under one arm. Ahsoka watched him from her spot sitting on the floor against the wall that cradled her inset bunk.

Before she could say anything, he started hesitantly: “Haven't seen you in a bit, sir. Wanted to... ah... apologize about earlier. The lekku comments. They were totally out of context and I was just trying to tease you. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.”

Ahsoka's expression slipped into a smile. She patted the ground next to her, and when the ARC took a seat she said, “Do you realize how surreal it is to be the only non-human aboard? I'm around you guys and my master and the officers all the time... sometimes I honestly forget that I'm Togruta. So when someone mentions anything about these features I'm born with and clearly make me different from everyone, it's hard not to take personally.”

Fives nodded, a sheepish expression on his face for only a moment before his smirk broke through. He swept a studious gaze over her and Ahsoka almost felt like hiding her lekku again.

“You know,” he began slowly, “there are a lot of things I can't tell you because you're my commander. But if you weren't— speaking completely hypothetically here— I wouldn't hesitate to tell you how beautiful you are. Your eyes are dazzling, your smile is perfect, and what hot-blooded sentient doesn't like lekku? But because you're my superior officer, you'll never hear me say that, sir.”

Ahsoka smiled and nudged her shoulder into Fives. She gave one lek a quick stroke. "Thanks, Fives. I don't mean to get so self-conscious, but--"

"Don't worry about it, Commander," he said. "Not everyone you come across will think this, but I--" He tossed his head in her direction and his voice stalled when their noses nearly touched.

For whatever reason, Ahsoka couldn't take her eyes off of his, both of them frozen within inches of one another.

"I... should stop talking before I really get myself into trouble," he finished. Barely a second later he popped to his feet. “Anyway. In a couple hours, Kix, Jesse, and all of us are getting chow if you wanted to join.” He was already halfway out the door before she could answer. “I'll see you around, sir!”  
…  
By the time Ahsoka found the regular crew sitting together in the mess hall eating dinner, Kix was halfway through telling how General Skywalker descended on their medical droid and began repairing it faster than Kix ever could've. He concluded with, “I didn't even know the general could repair droids!”

Ahsoka took a seat next to Jesse, who spared her a hesitant nod but considerably opened up once Ahsoka struck a conversation with him, the prank during room inspections completely forgotten.

However, everyone's meal was interrupted when an unusually shrill announcement came over the ship-wide comms from Admiral Yularen.

“WHOSE Treadwell droid is this and WHY is it trying to remove all the personnel from the bridge?! This is not within its function parameters-- General Skywalker!”

Wincing, Ahsoka rose from the table with a rushed apology to hurry along the shortest route back to the bridge. At least there was some sort of consistency to each hyperspace journey.


End file.
